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Daily Report: Nest Halts Sales of Smoke Detectors

By The New York Times April 4, 2014 6:52 amApril 4, 2014 6:52 am

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Nest Labs, the home automation company recently acquired by Google for $3.2 billion, said on Thursday that it was halting sales of its smoke and carbon monoxide detector over safety concerns, Nick Wingfield reports.

Tony Fadell, the chief executive of Nest, said in a letter posted on Nest’s website that it would stop selling the product, Nest Protect, until it fixed a problem with a feature that lets people temporarily disable the alarm by waving their hands in front of the detector. Mr. Fadell said Nest was concerned that the feature could be unintentionally activated, potentially delaying the alarm from going off if there was a fire.

Nest also said it was immediately deactivating the feature, which it calls Nest Wave, on smoke detectors already purchased, something it can do remotely. Mr. Fadell said the smoke and carbon monoxide detection capabilities of the alarms would continue to function.

“We’re enormously sorry for the inconvenience caused by this issue,” Mr. Fadell wrote. “The team and I are dedicated to ensuring that we can stand behind each Nest product that comes into your home, and your 100 percent satisfaction and safety are what motivates us. Please know that the entire Nest team and I are focused on fixing this problem and continuing to improve our current products in every way possible.” Read more »